新巴拿马运河的豪赌(上):问题重重的大项目

PANAMA CITY — On July 8, 2009, the Champagne finAlly flowed.

巴拿马市——2009年7月8日，终于可以畅饮香槟了。

After an intense two-year competition, a consortium led by a Spanish company in severe financial distress learned that its rock-bottom bid of $3.1 billion had won the worldwide competition to build a new set of locks for the historic Panama Canal.

在进行了两年的激烈竞争之后，由一家西班牙公司牵头的一个财团获知，其31亿美元的底价投标方案在全球竞标中胜出，将为历史悠久的巴拿马运河修建一系列新的水闸。当时这个财团正处于严重的财务困境中。

The unlikely victors toasted their win. Within days, executives of the four-nation consortium, Grupo Unidos por el Canal, flew to Europe to begin planning the project.

出人意料的胜利令他们欢呼雀跃。几天之内，这个名为“运河联合集团”(Grupo Unidos por el Canal)的四国财团的高管就飞到欧洲，着手筹划这个项目。

Disputes quickly erupted over how to divide responsibilities. Some executives appeared not to fully grasp how little money they had to complete a complex project with a tight deadline and a multicultural team whose members did not always see things the same way.

他们很快就因为分工的问题陷入争执。一些高管似乎没有充分意识到，他们需要用很少的钱，在紧迫的期限内完成一个复杂的项目，而且这是一个文化多元的团队，成员们看待事情的方式并不总是相同。

Internal arguments soon gave way to bigger problems. There would be work stoppages, porous concrete, a risk of earthquakes and at least $3.4 billion in disputed costs: more than the budget for the entire project.

内部争论很快让位给了更大的问题。他们将遇到工程停滞、混凝土漏水、地震风险，以及至少34亿美元存在争议的成本：比整个项目的预算都高。

Seven years later, and nearly two years late, the locks have finally been declared ready to accept the new generation of giant ships that carry much of the world’s cargo but cannot fit in the original canal. To mark the occasion, Panama has invited 70 heads of state to watch on Sunday as a Chinese container ship becomes the first commercial vessel to attempt the passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific through the larger locks.

七年后，在比预定时间晚了近两年之后，巴拿马终于宣布这些水闸准备好迎接新一代巨轮了，这种运载着全世界相当一部分集装箱的轮船是无法通过原来的运河的。为了纪念这个日子，巴拿马邀请70个国家的元首在本周日来观礼，届时，一艘中国货船将成为首艘尝试经过新运河从大西洋进入太平洋的商业船只。

For more than 100 years, the canal has been a vital artery nourishing the world economy, a testament to American engineering and one of the signature public works of the 20th century. The new locks, built by Panama without help from other governments, were sold to the nation and the world as a way to ensure that the canal remained as much of a lifeline in the hyperglobalized 21st century as it was in the last.

100多年来，这条运河一直是世界经济的重要动脉，是美国工程水平的明证，也是20世纪最著名的公共工程之一。巴拿马自己修建了新的水闸，完全不靠其他国家政府的任何帮助，以此来向全国和全世界表明，在21世纪的超全球化进程中，这条运河仍然是像20世纪那样的生命线。

But the expanded canal’s future is cloudy at best, its safety, quality of construction and economic viability in doubt, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

但是这条拓宽了的运河，其未来充其量也只能说是阴云密布，《纽约时报》的调查发现，它在安全性、建设质量和经济可行性上问题重重。

In simple terms, to be successful, the new canal needs enough water, durable concrete and locks big enough to safely accommodate the larger ships. On all three counts, it has failed to meet expectations, according to dozens of interviews with contractors, canal workers, maritime experts and diplomats, as well as a review of public and internal records.

简单来说，要想获得成功，新的运河需要足够多的水量，耐久性强的混凝土，而且水闸需要大到足以让大型船只安全通过。但经过采访几十名承包商、运河工人、海事专家和外交官，翻阅公共和内部记录，可以看到它在这三个方面都无法达到预期目标。

The low winning bid, $1 billion less than the nearest competitor’s, made “a technically complex mega-project” precarious from the outset, according to a confidential analysis commissioned by the consortium’s insurer. “There is little room in the budget for execution errors or significant inefficiencies,” the analysts, from Hill International, wrote in 2010, adding, “This is a high-risk situation.”

中标价格很低，比第二低的竞标对手低10亿美元。该财团的保险公司委托开展的一份机密分析显示，这样的低价使得“一个技术上很复杂的巨型项目”从一开始就岌岌可危。“预算中几乎没有为执行错误或效率严重偏低留下任何余地，”希尔国际(Hill International)的分析师在2010年写道，“这样的情况风险很高。”

Among the biggest risks is the concrete that lines the walls of the six mammoth locks punctuating the path between the seas.

最大的风险之一在于水闸的墙使用的混凝土，两大洋之间共有六道这样的巨型水闸。

Then there is the lock design. Tugboat captains say they cannot safely escort the larger ships because the locks are too small with too little margin for error, especially in windy conditions and tricky currents. In fact, in a feasibility study obtained by The Times, the Panama Canal Authority had earlier concluded that the tugs needed significantly more room.

然后是水闸的设计。一些拖轮船长说，他们无法安全地护送更大的船，因为水闸太小，几乎没有留下出错的余地，尤其是在风大、水流险恶的情况下。事实上，在《纽约时报》看到可行性研究报告之前，巴拿马运河管理局(Panama Canal Authority)早前就曾得出结论，拖轮需要远远更大的空间。

The tugboats themselves are a problem, especially the 14 new boats purchased from a Spanish company. To maneuver safely, they must be precisely controlled, but according to captains, they are so unstable that they operate best going backward, something that cannot be done while towing ships through the canal.

拖轮本身也是一个问题，尤其是从一家西班牙公司购买的14艘新船。要想安全行驶，就必须精确控制拖轮，但船长们说，这些船太不稳定，最好的做法以倒退的方式航行，而它们需要拖着船只通过运河，是无法这样退行的。

“The Spanish tugs are perfectly awful,” said Iván de la Guardia, the head of the tugboat captains’ union. Confidential documents obtained by The Times show that the canal authority bought the tugboats for $158 million from a company later represented by the son of Jorge L. Quijano, the canal’s administrator.

“西班牙的拖轮非常糟糕，”拖轮船长工会的负责人伊万·德拉瓜迪亚(Iván de la Guardia)说。《纽约时报》获得的机密文件显示，运河管理局以1.58亿美元的价格购买了这些拖轮，运河管理者豪尔赫·L·基哈诺(Jorge L. Quijano)的儿子后来成了那家销售拖轮的公司的代表。

The new locks exist for one reason: so that huge “neo-Panamax” ships can move far greater quantities of cargo through the canal. For them to do that, the waterway must remain deep enough so that fully laden ships do not hit bottom. But canal officials discounted warnings that they needed new sources of water, and during a recent drought, shippers had to significantly lighten their loads.

新水闸存在的目的是让巨大的“新巴拿马型”船只运载远远更多的货物通过运河。要做到这一点，水道就必须足够深，不至于让满载货物的船只触及河底。但是需要新水源的警告没有被运河官员听取，在近期的一次干旱中，船主不得不大量减轻船只的负载量。

At the center of the story is the Panama Canal Authority, which oversaw the design of the new locks and chose the winning bidder. In a small country dominated by an old-money elite, where the very lifeblood is the canal, the authority is a power center unto itself, a government within a government.

处在这件事的中心的是巴拿马运河管理局，监督新水闸的设计的是它，选择中标人的也是它。在一个由老钱权贵统治、以这条运河为命脉的小国，运河管理局本身就是一个权力中心，一个政府中的政府。

The Old and the New

新与旧

Grand in scale and beautifully imagined, the original Panama Canal is an engineering marvel. Ships glide through on a 50-mile water bridge. The lock gates, some weighing more than 700 tons, are watertight and buoyant, so finely balanced that should the power fail, a single person can manually open and close them.

原来的巴拿马运河规模宏大，设计风格瑰丽，堪称工程学上的一个奇迹。船只要沿着50英里长（约合80公里）的水桥滑行。水闸的闸门有些超过了700吨，不会漏水，又有浮力，实现了极佳的平衡。就算停电，也只要一个人就可以手工操作打开和关上闸门。

Three locks raise the ships 85 feet to Gatun Lake, which supplies water for the canal and drinking water for much of the country. Three more locks lower them back to sea level. All of the locks are filled and emptied by gravity, without pumps.

三道水闸令船只升高85英尺（约合25米），行至加通湖。后者为运河供水，也是巴拿马许多区域的饮用水来源。另外三道水闸将船只降低，再度回到海平面。所有的水闸都通过重力蓄水和排水，不需要水泵。

Over the decades, the canal made Panama, with few natural resources, a key square on the economic chessboard.

过去几十年，因为这座运河的存在，自然资源稀缺的巴拿马得以成为全球经济棋盘上关键的一格。

Then China’s economic ascent ushered in a new era. Ships became bigger. The more cargo they carried, the lower the cost. By 2000, ships were being built that could not pass through the canal. Fearing that its waterway might end up like the long-outdated Erie Canal, the canal authority set out to build a bigger one.

之后，中国经济崛起引领一个新时代到来。船体变得更大。单艘船运载的货物越多，总成本就越低。至2000年，建造中的船只已经大到无法通过这条运河。因为担心这条航道落得和早已过时的伊利运河(Erie Canal)一样，运河管理局打算建一条更大的运河。

Just as it was about to solicit bids, the canal authority received some frightening news in November 2007. Jonathan Harris, a geologist working for the authority, reported that Panama’s earthquake risk was far greater than previously believed. By his assessment, the area is vulnerable to earthquakes of up to 8.0 magnitude, according to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

就在即将开始招标之际，运河管理局于2007年11月听到了一些骇人的消息。为管理局工作的地质学家乔纳森·哈里斯(Jonathan Harris)提出，巴拿马发生地震的风险比此前想象的要大得多。维基解密(WikiLeaks)公开的一封外交电报显示，乔纳森估计这一地区有可能发生高达8级的地震。

Even so, three consortiums — including one led by Bechtel, a U.S. company with an international reputation for taking on big, difficult projects — pursued the contract. The financially weakest consortium was led by a Spanish company, Sacyr Vallehermoso, which U.S. officials called “nearly bankrupt” in one cable and “technically bankrupt” in another.

尽管如此，依然有三家财团——包括由柏克德(Bechtel)领导的一个，这家美国公司在国际上拥有承担有难度的大型项目的声誉——开始争取这个合同。其中财力最弱的是由西班牙公司萨维(Sacyr Vallehermoso)领导的财团。美国官员在一封电报中称这家公司“几近破产”，在另一封中表示它“严格说来已经破产”。

Sacyr’s consortium included a Panamanian company owned by the family of the canal administrator at the time, Alberto Alemán Zubieta. The company, Constructora Urbana, in which Alemán himself previously owned stock, had already done millions of dollars in business with the canal. The other two members were Impregilo, a large Italian contractor, and Jan De Nul, a Belgian company that specializes in dredging and excavation.

萨维领导的财团包括由当时的运河管理局局长阿尔贝托·阿莱曼·苏维塔(Alberto Alemán Zubieta)的家族拥有的一家巴拿马公司。这家名为城镇建造(Constructora Urbana)的公司此前已经与运河管理局做了数百万美元的生意。阿莱曼本人原先也持有公司的股票。财团另外两个成员是意大利大型承包公司英波基洛(Impregilo)和专做疏浚和挖掘工程的比利时公司Jan De Nul。

In March 2009, after 15 months of contentious negotiations, the three consortiums submitted their sealed bids. The one with the best price and design would win.

到了2009年3月，经过15个月激烈的谈判，三家财团提交了各自的密封投标书。报价和设计最优的一个将会胜出。

That July, the result was a shocker: The underdog Sacyr group had won.

当年7月，出来的结果让人吃惊：一直不被看好的萨维集团中标。

Bechtel and U.S. diplomats were incredulous. Sacyr could not even “pour the concrete” for that amount, a Bechtel representative told the embassy, according to a diplomatic cable.

柏克德公司和美国外交官感到难以置信。在一封外交电报中，柏克德的一名代表告诉美国驻巴拿马大使馆，萨维甚至无法“浇铸”那么多的“混凝土”。

While Sacyr’s low offer meant Panama received a bargain on price, some viewed it as too good to be true.

尽管萨维的低报价意味着巴拿马可以获得价格上的优惠，但一些人认为这个报价看起来太美好，不大可能实现。

A few days after Christmas in 2009, at lunch with Barbara J. Stephenson, the U.S. ambassador, Panama’s vice president, Juan Carlos Varela, confided his fears. He elaborated later: “You don’t mess around with something as important as the canal. When one of the bidders makes a bid that is a billion dollars below the next competitor, then something is seriously wrong,” he said, according to a diplomatic cable.

2009年圣诞节过去几天后，在与美国大使芭芭拉·J·斯蒂芬森(Barbara J. Stephenson)共进午餐时，巴拿马副总统胡安·卡洛斯·巴雷拉(Juan Carlos Varela)吐露了他的担忧。一封外交电报显示，他随后进行了详细解释：“对于运河这么重要的东西，是不能乱来的。其中一名竞标者提出比其他竞标者低10亿美元的报价，这是非常不对劲的。”